Visitors watch a Chinese-made moon explorer machine displayed at International Aerospace Technology and Equipment Exhibition Thursday July 5, 2007 in Shanghai, China. China put two astronauts into orbit for a week in 2005 and officials have said they want to put a man on the moon and build a space station in the next 10 or 15 years. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) less

Visitors watch a Chinese-made moon explorer machine displayed at International Aerospace Technology and Equipment Exhibition Thursday July 5, 2007 in Shanghai, China. China put two astronauts into orbit for a ... more

Photo: Eugene Hoshiko

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CHINA'S RACE TO SPACE / China looking skyward for a military advantage over U.S. space program

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During the Middle Ming Dynasty (circa 1500), a star-crossed Chinese official named Wan Hu attempted to become the world's first astronaut when he constructed a magnificent flying chair outfitted with 47 gunpowder-filled rockets and two kites for wings. After a giant explosion at "lift-off," neither the rocket chair nor the daring official was seen again.

Since then, China has traveled light years in its pursuit of the far reaches of space. In recent years, the Chinese National Space Administration has announced bold plans for a permanent space station, moon colony and Mars mission. The nation is rapidly rolling out a massive space-related infrastructure that includes a fourth space launch center, a powerful new line of launch vehicles, a fleet of deepwater space tracking ships, and ground stations established in Chinese client nations across the globe.

Premier Wen Jiabao announced in the People's Daily that "we are willing to join hands with people all over the world for peaceful use of space," but the country's actions haven't always reflected that.

In January, in a space shot heard 'round the world, China shot down one of its own satellites. This anti-satellite weapons test not only created a giant hazardous debris field in space, it also served as a wake-up call to the potential gravity of the Chinese space threat.

One of the biggest threats is the anti-satellite weapons themselves.

Both the U.S. economy and military depend heavily on a complex network of more than 400 orbiting satellites that provide everything from reconnaissance and navigation to communication and information. The crown jewel of this network is the world's only fully functional Global Positioning System, whose services the United States offers for free to the world.

Using the vantage point of space and its technological edge in weaponry, America has been able to fight a number of wars with decidedly asymmetrical casualties. During the 1991 Gulf War, for example, fewer than 150 Americans died in combat compared with enemy deaths in the tens of thousands.

America's leveraging of the ultimate strategic high ground has not gone unnoticed by China. Since the Gulf War, Chinese military analysts have realized that U.S. space superiority undermines their long-held strategy of "human wave" troop strength. And as evidenced in the writings of Chinese military strategists, one way to neutralize this superiority is to destroy or disable what is a highly vulnerable U.S. satellite network by using "satellite killer" weapons such as the one China tested in January.

The "kinetic kill vehicle" used in the January test is not the only weapon China has in its arsenal. As reported in Jane's Defence Weekly, China has been covertly testing high-energy lasers capable of melting the optical systems of a satellite as well as the solar panels that power it.

At greatest immediate risk from China's satellite killers is Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. Within the hawkish wing of the People's Liberation Army, some argue that a preemptive strike on U.S. surveillance satellites would impair American forces long enough for China to quickly retake Taiwan. Before a U.S. counterstrike could be launched, Chinese forces would dig in to defensive positions, rendering retaking of the island extremely costly. In this view, a defanged America would learn its lesson about interfering in Chinese affairs.

While knocking out America's satellite network might alone be sufficient to allow the retaking of Taiwan, China also views the construction of its own network, particularly its own GPS system, as an integral part of its broader military strategy to safeguard its own territory, assert itself as a regional power in Asia, and to ensure its right of access to resources around the globe -- from Persian Gulf oil and African precious metals to Brazilian iron ore and Cuban nickel.

China calls its budding GPS system Beidou, named after the star formation that represents a rice scooper to the Chinese and that we know as the Big Dipper. There is little doubt that Beidou is ultimately being built for military purposes.

First, the U.S. GPS system works very well in China, and it is fully available at no charge to Chinese civilian, government and commercial users. Second, China argues that its own system will be technically superior to America's, but given China's technical lag, an improvement in accuracy is unlikely and economically unjustifiable. Third, China argues that it needs a backup to the U.S. system in case it fails -- but the only likely cause of failure would be the result of an attack by another nation.

Of course, the other reason China might need a backup is in time of war; as operator of the GPS system, the United States reserves the right to disable enemy access to the system. That's at least partly why China has prepared to utilize the Russians' Glonass GPS system currently being deployed, while also investing 200 million euros in the European Galileo GPS project.

The broader point is this: With a proven, free U.S. solution and Russian and European backups in production, the primary purpose of Beidou is for the support of offensive military applications and the use of precision-guided weaponry that might be so distasteful that all three GPS providers would shut China down.

The wedding of China's Beidou GPS system to its ever increasing array of sophisticated weaponry poses an additional threat that reaches far beyond any possible military conflict between China and the United States: the selling of missiles to rogue nations around the world.

Consider the Middle East. When the United States invaded Iraq in 1991, Saddam Hussein lobbed Scud missiles toward Israeli cities. Although these highly inaccurate weapons resulted in few casualties, it would be another thing entirely for Iran or Syria to buy from the Chinese weapons bazaar the capability to accurately hit Jewish population centers, government buildings, Israeli troops and military installations. In this vein, it should also be noted that Chinese-supplied munitions routinely find their way from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon for use against Israel.

Most of these concerns pale in comparison to the threat of orbital nuclear weapons. In this case, the Chinese space program lacks the transparency of the U.S. program. Each secretive Shenzhou spacecraft is capable of leaving behind an 8-by-9-foot orbital module that can contain anything from observation equipment to what might quickly become a string of nuclear bombs in low Earth orbit that could be dropped without notice.

Consider this in the context of a statement from Chinese Col. Jia Junming in his 2005 publication Joint Space War Campaigns: "Our future space weapons program should be low profile and 'intense internally' but relaxed in external appearance to maintain our good international image and position."

Unlike intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are launched from land or sea by powerful rockets, orbital warheads can simply be "nudged" down with no telltale boost-phase infrared flare. Already at the top of their trajectory, they avoid a slow assent phase and arrive on target quickly. Consequently they are virtually unstoppable by missile defense systems.

The sum of all these fears calls for careful U.S. observation of all Chinese space efforts and serious attention to America's slipping superiority in space technology. The United States may not, however, be without blame in triggering a space race with China.

In October, the Bush administration declared a Monroe Doctrine for space: that U.S. freedom of action in space is as important as air and sea power and that the United States reserves the right to "deny such freedom of action to adversaries."

From the Chinese space hawk perspective, this provocative declaration represents just one more step toward the inevitable militarization of space -- an inevitability driven by a hegemonic superpower that holds the ultimate strategic high ground and has vowed to engage in preemptive warfare to defend that ground. Accordingly, the Chinese hawks believe they have no choice but to engage in a military space race both to preserve Chinese sovereignty and, eventually, to project what they see as China's rightful regional and eventual global power.

As China reaches for the stars, it is both ironic and dangerous that the United States space program continues its parabolic fade amid budget cuts, internal scandal, interminable shuttle delays and an aging NASA brain trust no longer able to innovate. Meanwhile, America's domestic aerospace engineering talent base continues to rapidly decay. The collateral problem, of course, is that as the United States keeps its eyes focused on the Middle East, China may be moving to a deep space checkmate. The admonition "don't play checkers in a chess world" may be particularly relevant now for U.S. policymakers and military strategists.